PROHIBITION FALLACIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6551, 31 July 1899, Page 1

PROHIBITION FALLACIES.

: (Published by : arrangement.) ', • f MOKE KANSAS. •; '*■. It has, .previously Jjsertf pointed out that' ..in Kansia^'tßfe'anig-s£«ces are little mow |ha& rluin'-shdp's,'.-iM that their number -is ttavmytovtii,^ Wisf a "pqpula- ■•' has $j.Kuiidre3:, aiiid l'seventy-'---vfive'pi4fces'>^h'ei'eli'qfl6r''ii'soT(J. In Kansas City, -in 1882 the" police collected ' 45,000. dollars in fines for illegal sales of liquprs. , In " Tongawoxie; a small " Kansas town, where .tnere was no. saloon lief ore prohibition was passed, there are now several, places which are really saloons. Topeka, abo.ut which so much has been said in prohibition ""journals, has no saloons, but this is not due to legislation, but to. popular feeling, for there were none before the introduction of prohibition, which seems to prove that the only real and effective restriction is public .sentiment. Now, it must be remembered that; Kansas has a very scattered population, and that . al- : though it averages seventeen to every. square 'mile,' ; only 11 per cent live in towns, of ' over 8000 inhabitants. In New Zeiland the borough population forjns., ,43.69; per cent of the whole. The number of, paupers "in alms-houses, per- 'million <;i' population, was, according to the United -States census returns^ Kansas, 1880, 356, and in 1890, 416, and the number of . prisoners in Penitentiaries and county gaols per million of population was, in 1880, 893. rising in 1890 ~to 946. Comparing prohibition Kansas with the nonrprohibition. State of New York, in .which 59 per cent of the population live in towns of over 8000 inhabitants, and with an average of 125 to each' square' mile, the census returns .show that while Kansas increased in both crime and pauperism, New York State actually declined in the latter and increased in the former but slightly in excess of the prohibition- State. Of course, •it will be obvious that the higher ratios prevailing : >\\ New York State as compared with "Kansas, afe due entirely to that economic pressure which invariably accompanies dense population. There is thus provided- still another .proof that the social blemishes, poverty and crime, are the results not of "drink,"' but of those industrial conditions and that struggle for livelihood which,, with terrible fatality, . seem to follow in the .wake o f social progress. That, prohibition dqes not guarantee immunity from the-graver forms 'of crime, Kansas bears striking 1 and painlful witness. In this State the deaths sentence is required to , take, place at sucfl time as the Governor may appoint, and the result has been that a large'number of. murderers have been kept in confinement awaiting a date which is -never, fixed. In , 1890 no fewer than 49 convicts were awai*:.ing execution, some of whom, had been sentenced years previously. "In 1880 the 'number of homicides per million of population in Kansas was 88, this number 'increasing in 1890 to 121. . This ratio is immensely higher than preyailed either in the State of New York or ' in Massachusetts. In the New York the number of homicides per million of population was as follows: --- 1880 55, and. in 1890 79. In Massachusetts. 1880, 47, and 1890, 38. Five executions took place in Kansas in 1890. "The abovtr figures are almost painful in their grim interest, but they at least prove that pro hibition is absolutely, .useless as a safeguard against, the • worst of all crimes — and. yefc they say " prohibition is a success." 198;?